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13 September 2009

After-thoughts: Supernatural Season 5: Sympathy for the devil

After a long painful summer (or winter if you live in the southern hemisphere), Supernatural has finally returned with the Winchesters brothers and a lot more. I am still processing my thoughts, but I better write them down before I forget. If you haven’t watched Sympathy for the devil, you may not want to read this blog post.

I know this is not proper English, but I WOW-ed a few times while watching the season five premier. There are a lot of big and little things I like about this episode.

Previously on Supernatural..

How good was the ‘Previously on..’?! It’s beyond words how excited I was to see the ‘Previously on..’ You see the journey of the brothers, Castiel, Bobby, demons and angels. And so quickly, you are transported to the mother of all “oh crap!’ moment. HE IS HERE.

New title card

It’s not official until you see the new Supernatural title card. It was awesome! There’s blood on a light background. I think it’s probably the first time they use a lighter background instead of black.

Brotherly love (not really)

How are you supposed to react if you are the big brother, and your little brother screwed up. You know you are supposed to stop it from happening, but crap happened anyway.

Dean was surprisingly gentle with Sam at the beginning of the episode. But you know one of them is going to break. In the end, Dean was honest about his feeling. Dean was completed heard broken about the fact that Sam chose to believe Ruby than his own brother and he told Sam that he didn’t trust him anymore. While I thought it was a great scene, it was too sad!! Will Dean forgive and forget eventually?

“This is a little trick I learnt from my friend Cas.” Dean

Since the start of the episode, I kept asking myself WHERE THE HELL IS CASTIEL!? Castiel has the best entrance in this episode. I think it’s probably the first time he won a fight since.. since.. ah… since.. humm…. It’s like Castiel has his mojo back or something. He spoke without fear. He was confident. He is the angel we all want.

In last season, Castiel was a very powerful character in the first 2 episodes he appeared in, but his attitude changed a little as the season progressed. There were moments where Castiel was afraid, he became less and less powerful in a way. But in Sympathy for the devil, it’s like he is back and he kicks asses!

A solid list of cast members

How awesome was the cast?

Starting with the prophet Chuck (played by Rob Benedict), who is so funny to watch. He is so serious in a way, but it’s just funny! I love Chuck!

And then we have Uncle Bobby (played by Jim Beaver) entered the episode with the Impala. It’s the first time we see Bobby driving the Impala. AH! And he was possessed by a demon. But he was so brave, he stabbed himself with knife when he woke up. Yeah! Go Bobby!

Kurt Fuller’s interpretation of Zachariah was spot on. He is exactly the kind of bad guy the show needs. He’s either good or bad, he is in the grey area, which is strange but awesome at the same time.

Although John Winchester has been dead since the beginning of season 2, but the Gospel of the Winchesters still involved him in some way. There was this moment where I thought HOLY CRAP John has the sword all along?! That’s awesome! In a way, yes, John has the sword… it’s Dean!

God I hope they bring JDM back!

Understand the devil 101

Mark Pellegrino made a quiet but good introduction to the show. He is a great actor, I’ve seen him in Dexter and Lost, he always creeps me out. So when I heard that he will play Lucifer, I know he will do a creepy good job.

I think his character/ performance is right where the writers want him to be in the first episode. Pellegrino is not Lucifer yet in this episode. He plays Nick,

who is a quiet, sad and helpless victim who lost his family. He is wondering why horrible things happen to him and his family. He is vulnerable and the devil takes advantage of it. The scene between Nick and Lucifer was slow but I think it’s a necessary ‘understanding Lucifer 101’. I think we can also expect a similar scene with a similar tone for Dean and God (or Michael) when they meet later in the series.

I like it when I see bad guys on TV or movies, they sometimes see themselves as the victims and they think they are doing this for good cause. It’s so intriguing to see how one turns bad (I guess this is why I enjoy watching characters like Anakin Skywalker or Lex Luther turn dark side.)

I expect once Lucifer takes his body, Pellegrino will excel. I can’t wait to see him playing off Jensen and Jared, and see the chemistry. Give it time, I think we’ll see good things from Pellegrino. The devil returns in episode 5.03 Free to be you and me.

The general needs a body. A dang good one!

I am loving the ‘Dean as a Michael’s sword’ twist. I think it makes sense that if Lucifer needs a vessel, Michael will also need a vessel. But I don’t see Dean agreeing to let Michael take over his body. We’ll wait and see.

Supernatural fandom raised a little hell on Twitter

This is a blog worthy story! Supernatural fans were promoting the show on Twitter hours leading up to the season premier with hashtags such as #luciferiscoming and #supernatural. Basically, the more Twitter users use these hashtags, the higher chance they become trending topics in real time. Trending topics are hottest topics or words people mention on Twitter in real time.

So anyway, fans took over Twitter for a short period of time, #luciferiscoming was the number one trending topic and #supernatural came second. You can see a screen shot here.

If you don’t know about the show, you will freak out when you see ‘Lucifer is coming’. No doubt some people actually thought the end of the world was really coming or they thought there were devil worshippers on Twitter. P Diddy actually retaliated with #Godissphere without knowing the real reasons behind our hastags. It’s a TV show you idjit! It’s a show about good versus evil.

So Twitter took the #luciferiscoming off the trending topic, and I think at one stage they took #supernatural off too. After a little investigation, Twitter reinstated #Supernatural and fans started using tags like #inkripkewetrust and #pddidyisscaredofhistv.Misha Collins was such a good sport by challenging Diddy to a competition involving eating cupcakes while riding horseback. We love you Misha!

Whoever is going to a Supernatural convention, please ask Krikpe what he thinks about this!

The TV rating

Supernatural scored a 3.39m rating for its season 5 premiere. It also scored its best women 18-34 (1.7/5) and women 18-49 (1.7/5) ratings since January 2009. Source: Eclipse Magazine, who also provided an excellent review of the episode. More professional than an amateur like me.

Overall, although Sympathy for the devil might not be as great as Lazarus Rising, it’s like this is only part 1 of 2. But it is still a great episode. I just want more. I’d give this episode 4 out of 5 pies.